Title: You Found Me

Full Summary: Edward Masen has lived the life of a nomadic vampire, travelling with James and Victoria since he awoke as an immortal. His ability to read minds has had the unusual side effect of making him a vampire with a conscience. Despite the ridicule from his coven mates, he's confident he's making the best of his existence and doing what's morally right... until he stumbles upon a brown-eyed girl reading in a meadow in Forks. As he attempts to befriend her and learns more about the sleepy town of Forks, Edward finds there's a lot more to being a vampire than he ever thought possible.

Pairings: Canon

Rating: M, for language and future sexing.

Chapter: Sixteen; Enlightened

POV: Edward

AN: This chapter is all about the Cullens. I'm a little nervous about it, more than the past chapters, because there's so much opportunity for plot holes the more people you add… especially when you're dealing with a psychic and a mind-reader. Hope I've done it (and them) justice, anyway.

All the usual thanks to the usual people, you all know who you are :)

xx

I sat on the edge of the sofa, watching Bella's chest rise and fall with the deep breaths of sleep. For once, I didn't feel guilty. I belonged here watching over her.

Musing over the day's events, I thumbed her new cast, careful not to wake her.

It was strange how a day that had started on such a sour note could be topped with the best five minutes of my life. Looking back, this would be a day of revelations and first kisses, not of pain and broken arms.

Alice appeared at my side, holding a sharpie out to me. "She's going to love it. Trust me, if you write what you're thinking about writing, you'll be guaranteed an encore of tonight's performance." In response to my glowering expression she amended, "Sorry. We can't help what we overhear. The two of you were tormenting Jasper."

I grabbed the marker, put out that my message wouldn't be a secret between Bella and I and that the progression in our relationship was common knowledge in the Cullen household. I quickly scrawled the words I'd been thinking before Alice had interrupted, much to her approval.

"Jasper? The one with all the scars?" I wondered absently as I recorded my message. "How were Bella and I tormenting him, exactly?"

"Yes. My mate. He's an empath. You and Bella were radiating some pretty strong emotions tonight. Usually he's able to drown out the intensity when they become too much, but the two of you felt too strongly for that to work. He was surprised by the level of devotion Bella feels towards you considering she's still human."

"He can read feelings?" I asked, a little confused. I'd never met an empath before. It sounded like a narrower version of my gift but instead of hearing all thoughts, he could hear emotions.

"More than that. He feels everything everyone around him feels. He can alter feelings, too, most the time. But, as I said, you and Bella were feeling too strongly for him to have much of an effect on either of you. She's your other half, so I'm not surprised. Today was the first opportunity the two of you have had to indulge the physical side of your relationship. Your emotions were bound to be intense."

"How do you know so much about Bella and I?" I questioned, growing increasingly alarmed the more I realized she and her family knew about me. "I understand that Jasper told you what happened tonight and that you could all hear… but how do you know that was our first kiss? How do you know so many unspoken things about the two of us?"

Alice smiled impishly. "I've been keeping tabs on your future for years, monitoring when the time would be right to introduce you to my family. Why do you think we chose to settle in Forks these last few years? I've had visions of having this very conversation for years. My family and I were waiting for the circumstances to be right to make it a reality. It's a little surreal for me to be talking to you now, having known this was coming for so long."

"Wait," I interrupted. "You're telling me that you've been keeping track of my life for the last 85 years? Isn't that a little intrusive?"

"I wasn't doing it to be malicious," she said defensively. "It wasn't even necessarily conscious on my part. Sometimes I can look for the future but sometimes it finds me. The first visions I had of you came to me. I didn't go looking for them. When I realized what was going to happen… it kind of became something I was always watching out for. I've known you were meant to be my brother, Edward, since the moment we met."

My eyebrows raised as shock and suspicion set in. This was what Victoria had warned me of... another coven vying for my loyalty. What I couldn't determine was whether it was a play for my gift or if Alice genuinely cared. Her thoughts indicated she was being sincere but vampires had the capabilities to mask their thoughts more effectively than humans.

"So what you're saying is that it's my destiny to become a part of your coven?" I asked skeptically. "Isn't that awfully convenient for you?"

While I no longer doubted that Alice could see the future – several of the short-term visions I'd witnessed pass through her mind had been surprisingly accurate – that didn't mean she wasn't fabricating images of the more distant future.

"Not convenient," she countered. "It's just the way it's worked out. I don't write the future. I see it."

"What if I don't want it to be that way?" I asked stubbornly. "You've shown me that the future can be variable. I have a coven, Alice, you know that. James and Victoria aren't the most conventional but they're all I've got. They're all I've had for years. You waited 85 years for me to find you until the 'time was right?' That seems like a load of shit to me. Why would anything be different now than it was 85 years ago?"

"I didn't know it until recently but it was Bella," she explained earnestly. Her expression was so open, it was hard to believe she might be lying. She was an excellent actress if that was the case.

"She was the push you needed to be ready to meet my family. She's the one person you have stronger ties to than your coven. Without her influence you wouldn't have been ready to listen to me had I tried to talk to you, even as recently as a few months ago. I'm sure you're aware but Bella has changed you irrevocably. She is, for all intents and purposes, your mate."

She mentally scrolled through several images of Bella and I holding hands as we ran together, both of us with glowing amber eyes; a slideshow of my future I realized.

"She's going to be one of us, Edward, and so are you."

"My mate," I breathed, my tone hushed with disbelief.

I'd thought the term in conjunction with Bella before but it had never held quite the same meaning. It was a crude possessive term to stake claim where I knew I probably deserved none. But this… this was real. It was forever. I'd well and truly fallen for a human. It had seemed so implausible I'd doubted the veracity of my own feelings.

It should have been obvious to me but it hadn't. I'd known I'd felt strongly about keeping her safe, protecting her, wanting her to be mine, but it had always seemed part whimsy… an improbable fantasy I'd eventually have to let go of before I returned to reality where vampire-human interactions didn't extend beyond mealtime.

Alice grinned at my awestruck expression. "Yes. I don't see any deviations from this future. All threads of possibility lead to the same conclusion. The path that takes you there will vary as you make decisions that affect your relationship but unless something drastic happens, it's inevitable. Since you two met four weeks ago, it's been set in stone. You're soul-bound."

I turned to gaze at Bella sleeping peacefully on the sofa. Something inside me, in the space I imagined my heart would be were I not solid stone, clenched as the reality of what Alice was telling me set in. She was going to be mine forever.

Decades of being alone, trailing on the heels of a mated couple and passing by numerous other mated nomadic pairs as we crisscrossed the country… nearly a century of waiting, wondering when and if I'd ever find the person I was meant to be with… and she was sleeping just inches away from me.

The slideshow of images from Alice's vision featuring Bella and I, golden-eyed and happy played in my mind on repeat. I was afraid to let them settle into the back recesses of my mind, worried they might disappear.

"This is surreal," I managed to choke out. "You're saying she's really my mate. Forever? You better not be kidding about this. If this is your idea of a joke…"

"I'm totally serious," she swore, the tenor of her thoughts reinforcing her claim. "Finding your mate is a very powerful thing. Once that shift has taken place in a vampire, the bond he feels to his mate is unbreakable. It's something hard to understand unless you've experienced it. It's only overwhelming to you because it's new. Soon it'll be like breathing. You won't have to think about, it will be something that just is."

"But I've known her for weeks… how come I'm just now feeling this way?" I asked, unable to tear my eyes from Bella. I couldn't bring myself to care that it might be rude. "Yesterday I knew I cared for her, deeply. Now the connection between us feels different."

Alice shrugged. "Some vampires believe the bond isn't sealed until the first kiss between mates. It might be that you first kissed Bella today. Or it could be something as simple as the fact that you now know beyond a doubt that Bella is your mate and it's changed the way you view your relationship with her."

"That makes it sound so simple. It doesn't feel simple."

Alice grinned widely. "You're making it more complicated than it needs to be. You love her. That's all there is to it. You're such a typical male; unable to understand what you're feeling until a woman tells you point blank that you're in love."

I laughed for the first time since Bella had broken her arm. It felt good to let go of the stress, confusion and intensity of the last couple hours. "Thanks for the clarification."

"No problem. Alice Cullen, at your service. I'm also pretty handy with tarot cards." She winked.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Look, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about… I got the impression that I hurt your feelings, the way I acted when I was a newborn. I wanted to explain."

"Alice… it's okay," I assured, meaning it honestly. "Truly. You've been nothing but kind to me today. I apologize for the way I acted earlier. I was riled up because Bella was hurt. You didn't deserve my hostility and you don't owe me anything. I should be thanking you for helping me keep Bella safe."

"No, this is something you need to know." She folded her hands in her lap nervously. "Even though we didn't know one another very well, I knew that my decision to leave would hurt you. It wasn't my intention to cause you pain."

I sniffed, not sure whether or not I believed her. After her kindness today, I didn't want to believe she would blatantly lie but my memories begged to differ.

"You could have let me know when you were leaving and where you were going. I followed your scent for miles, only to find you crossed the Mississippi to get away from me."

She touched my shoulder consolingly. I looked at it ruefully. I didn't want to be upset but rehashing those particular memories stung a little. I shrugged nonchalantly, trying not to show how affected I was.

"I wasn't running from you, Edward… Edward, please, listen to me. I wasn't."

"I know we had only known one another for a couple of weeks," I continued over Alice's protesting, "but I thought you considered me a friend. When I learned that James killed the vampire who changed you… I remembered how overwhelmed I felt as a newborn and how much it helped having James and Victoria to explain things to me. I didn't want you to go through it alone."

"I did appreciate everything you did for me," she insisted. "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be who I am today. I considered you my brother even then. But I couldn't tell you that or let you know about my talent. If Victoria had learned about my gift, I wouldn't have been allowed to leave. I needed to find Jasper. I couldn't stay."

She wrung her hands in her lap, her eyes meeting mine desperately, begging for me to understand her need to seek out her mate. Now that I understood the feeling she had been chasing, I couldn't find it in me to protest. I didn't think I could give up the way I felt about Bella now.

"Even if I had stayed, you would have eventually read enough of my visions to know that I needed to find Jasper. You would have stepped in to defend my right to go looking for him. James would have killed you. My gift was the more valuable of the two in his eyes. He saw no harm in replacing you with me if he couldn't have both. I couldn't let them kill you. So I left."

"They would have killed me?" I asked, appalled. Though it didn't seem out of the realm of possibility, I'd never thought James or Victoria would stoop so low as to kill me for something as petty as defending another vampire's right to find her mate.

"Yes. You know how I explained that I had to wait for you to meet Bella for the right circumstances to talk to you?"

I nodded, trying to absorb these new truths. For so long I'd been living on assumptions about what had happened to cause Alice to leave Louisiana so abruptly. The eternal pessimist in me hadn't considered she might have done so for less than selfish reasons.

"Well, it was the same thing then. My gift was new to me and I was unskilled at using it. I tried to figure out how I could help you get away from them but I could never come up with a solution to free us both. No matter what I did, I always saw one or both of us dead. Keeping you in the dark and eventually leaving you behind was the only option safe for us both."

"Thank you for sparing me," I said honestly, conveying my gratitude with a small smile. "You didn't have to do that. I know most vampires wouldn't have cared for anyone but themselves."

"Of course I cared. You were my first friend in this life. Vampires don't forget, remember?"

"I suppose not," I agreed, still trying to process what I'd learned. I didn't doubt Alice's story was true. There was no faking the sincere tone of her thoughts, nor the convoluted story. It was a lot to accept, however.

"Anyway," Alice continued, "by the time Jasper and I found the Cullens it was too late. By then you'd been with them for decades. You no longer thought of them as travelling partners. I would have been an unwelcome face from the past trying to steal you away from everything you knew. It's only been recently, since Bella, that your priorities have changed and you've begun to see James and Victoria for what they truly are. Why do you think you feel so uncomfortable with the thought of them knowing she exists? Deep down, you've always known."

"I've been so blind." I sighed, upset with my own ignorance. How could I not have grasped that the people I'd known all of my second life would have not spared a second thought when it came to killing me? I was lucky to have survived this long.

"Not blind," Alice countered comfortingly. "They're what you know. They're the standard you measured other vampires by. Why would you think they're unusually cruel when they and others have always ridiculed you for being too kind? You assumed you were the unusual one, not them."

"Right," I sighed. "It's not like I didn't know something was different about them. I chose to ignore it. That makes me just as stupid as if I hadn't known."

"Sooner or later you're going to realize you don't have the right answers to everything. You don't know everything and you can only make decisions based on what you do know. Forgive yourself or live with your regrets forever."

"Easy for you to say. You do know everything."

She grinned. "Not quite everything. I do know the rest of my family is eager to talk to you, though. They think I'm hogging you."

I listened carefully and sure enough, I could hear the curious and eager thoughts of the vampires littered on the upper floors of the Cullen house.

"Are you ready to meet them?"

"Okay," I agreed.

"They're going to love you. Esme has been dying to meet you. She's been doting on all of us so long, it's not enough anymore. She's been eager for a new subject."

"Why do I suddenly feel afraid?"

"Because once my family has been unleashed on you, there's no turning back," she teased back. "Don't worry, they've learned their lesson. They will introduce themselves to you in a single-file, neat and orderly fashion. They don't want to make you uncomfortable."

I nodded, listening to the murmur of thoughts around the house. Most of them were welcoming with one very obvious exception. "I can hear. They sound nice… mostly."

Alice grinned knowingly. "Don't worry about Rosalie. She's set in her ways, but she'll come around. She had a difficult transition into this life. I think she might be able to learn something from you. She's going to have a reason to be thankful for your presence in her life soon enough, trust me."

Sure I will. Don't worry, asshole, you don't have to worry about me joining your fan club any time soon. If you expect me to fawn over you like the others… well don't. You'll be sorely disappointed.

I tuned out the negative response from Rosalie, who had clearly been eavesdropping. How she got along with this seemingly peaceful family, I wasn't sure. If James hadn't already had a mate, I would have thought their surly attitudes perfectly matched.

"What would she possibly thank me for? She seems to hate me. I highly doubt she's going to suspend that opinion while she gets to know me better."

"Haven't you learned anything? Trust the psychic, Edward. You're going to play a crucial role in Rosalie's future."

"Great," I muttered sarcastically, wondering if all psychics were as smug. "I'm looking forward to spending more time with her."

Alice tinkered out a laugh. "Oh, you guys. If you only knew what I do. I love knowing things first. I'm going to go get the others so they can introduce themselves. I'll be back in a minute."

I took the moment of solitude to check on Bella who was still sleeping soundly beside me on the sofa, one hand tucked beneath her chin, her face peaceful and innocent. I loved watching her sleep. Since the night she'd fallen asleep on my lap in the meadow, I'd discovered there was nothing else in this world that was quite so calming.

I tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear, half-listening to her heartbeat, half-listening to the Cullens talk upstairs. They weren't distressed, but they did seem to be speaking rather urgently, given the hushed tones they spoke in. My curiosity piqued.

"Are you certain it's the right time? You know how important this is to our family…"

"Of course, Carlisle. I wouldn't suggest taking action now, if I wasn't…"

"And I trust you implicitly, you know that. I just want to be sure that you're sure."

"I am. With Edward showing up, it's ideal. The sooner they're all under the same roof, the better, though it may be a while until we notice a shift in her behaviour."

"Just, please be sure, Alice," a third, feminine voice pleaded. "She deserves to be happy."

"I know, Esme." She paused, consulting a mental map. "Tennessee," she said suddenly. "He'll be here in a couple days, three at most, depending on how fast he travels."

"As long as you're sure this is the right time, I trust you."

"It is. Edward is the catalyst, you know that… He's downstairs waiting to meet you properly, by the way… Bella's asleep. He's outwardly calm but I think he may be nervous. Jasper will know better. Just, be careful?"

"Of course."

The voices disappeared, only to be replaced with rapid footsteps. I quickly returned my attention to Bella, pretending I hadn't been listening; not that I understood much of what had been said anyway.

It was odd, meeting strange vampires who seemed to view me as a long lost family member, all because of my history with Alice. It was nice that they were so willing to accept me.

I couldn't help but wonder how different my life might have been had Alice and I been able to escape together all those years ago. They could have truly been my family. Then I considered I might have never met Bella. I banished that thought.

Carlisle and Esme sat on the couch opposite from Bella and I. Esme smiled at me warmly, even though we'd yet to be introduced. Alice followed them in, but remained standing.

"Jasper and Rosalie went hunting," she explained.

Jasper offered to get Rosalie out of here for a while, she admitted. We thought it might make you more comfortable if she wasn't breathing down your neck. He'll introduce himself when he gets back.

"We thought it might be less overwhelming if we staggered the introductions," Alice said out loud with a wink. I smiled at her attempt to put me at ease. "These are my parents, Carlisle and Esme Cullen. They'll explain anything you want to know. Carlisle will be able to answer your questions better than me."

They both offered heartfelt greetings. I returned them hesitantly. The Cullens seemed nice but they were still essentially strangers to me.

While neither of their minds were closed to me – they didn't have the characteristic empty hum that James and Victoria did – the thoughts I could read seemed almost like surface thoughts, as though they were crafting a wall of thought to conceal more important thoughts from me. I had little experience being around other vampires who knew I could read minds, besides James and Victoria, so perhaps I was being suspicious without just cause.

Once Alice checked I was okay to be alone with the Cullens – which I admitted I was; I didn't feel my life was at stake, at any rate – she leaped out of the nearest window, sprinting to catch up with Jasper and Rosalie, suggesting that I come join them once Carlisle explained "the mechanics" to me.

I was very interested in learning about "the mechanics," whatever they were. My throat was burning fiercely. Having Bella so near wasn't helping matters, but with her sleeping in a house full of vampires, I wasn't yet ready to leave her on her own.

"Alice has told what you've been through. I can't imagine how overwhelmed you must be right now. I hope you'll allow us a chance to explain," Esme said, her features creased with concern. It was immediately clear to me why Alice considered Esme her mother.

There was something inherently maternal about her. I couldn't put my finger on what it was but it didn't seem contrived in the least. She seemed genuinely worried about me. It was strange to think that someone was worried about me, an essentially unbreakable immortal. No one had worried about my wellbeing since I was human and my own mother had had the opportunity to fawn over me about silly things.

"I'm confused," I confessed. "I don't understand why all of you are being so… hospitable. You don't know me. Is it because of Alice? I assure you that you aren't obligated to include me because she asked you to."

"If something is important to one member of our family, it is important to us all," Carlisle explained. "You're important to Alice, so you're important to all of us, as well. She cares about and respects you very much for what you did for her, you know."

"But don't misunderstand," Esme clarified her husband's thoughts. "Welcoming you into our home you wasn't something Alice needed to convince us to do. Through her stories we feel as though we know you. Though you've never met us, we know you. She talks of you endlessly. Her visions over the years have shown us how much we will come to care for you and so we may be feeling protective preemptively."

I shifted uncomfortably. "It's disconcerting that all of you know so much about me and have no qualms sharing your knowledge of my life with me. I don't know anything about you or who you are, yet you tell me that I'll think of you as family one day? I'm sorry if I seem ungrateful, but I don't know you."

"We're sorry to have disturbed you," Esme said. "We've been looking forward to meeting you for decades. It's difficult for us to contain our eagerness, especially since Alice's visions have already allowed us to feel close to you. You have to know that we'll do whatever it takes to make you comfortable."

"Perhaps you could start by answering some questions?" I suggested. I didn't want to intrude where I wasn't welcome, but I needed some answers. I wanted to know who they were before I could consider trusting them.

"Of course," Carlisle agreed. "We'll answer you anything within our power."

"The wolves – the boys from the Quileute reservation, I mean – when they caught my scent, they chased me until they recognized that 'I was one of the Cullens,'" I quoted. "What difference does that make to them? Why do they hunt other vampires, but not you?"

"It has to do with how we live differently than other vampires," Carlisle explained. "Because we don't kill humans, the Quileute wolves have agreed that we can peacefully co-exist. The sole reason they exist is to rid their territory of vampires. In fact, they only start the transformation process when our kind lives near. We've signed a treaty promising not to kill or otherwise injure humans in this region."

"But I don't… I've not lived as you have. I'm not one of the Cullens, in case you haven't noticed," I said stubbornly. "My name is Masen."

Carlisle smiled wryly. "Yes, we've noticed. They left you alone because I asked them to. That was a tough sell to the wolves, believe me. They saw no reason why they should spare you when your eyes are red and not gold, especially when you had no guaranteed allegiance to my family. They think of you as a loose cannon. As long as you've got the blood of a human ruining through your veins, you're their enemy. Even my children sometimes find it hard to locate common ground with the wolves, despite our compromise. I'm quite sure the reason that they spared you was because they didn't want to dissolve our treaty. They knew, had they killed you against my wishes, a cross-species war could have potentially broken out. The casualties, on both sides, would be devastating, and quite simply, killing you wasn't worth what it would have cost them."

If eye colour mattered so much to the wolves, it made sense it was somehow connected to the Cullens peaceful lifestyle. It would also explain why they'd been so fond of calling me a "red eyes;" I'd thought it had been another term for a vampire, but to them, it was the difference between a good vampire and an bad one. Stupid judgmental mutts. If only they knew the pains I went through trying to be good.

"So your eyes… they're a sign of allegiance to your coven and help distinguish you as humanitarians?" I deduced. "If I were to convert to your way of life, hypothetically of course, would I be expected to artificially change my eye colour?"

Esme laughed, a sweet warm sound. "In a way the gold of our eyes separates us from others but it isn't something we chose for that purpose," she explained. "We would never expect you to change your appearance to be a part of our family, if that was something you were opposed to. Our source of nutrition colours our eyes much the way yours does. When we get hungry our eyes darken as well."

"You drink artificial blood?" I hypothesized a smidgen smugly. It was the only possible conclusion I could come up with that made sense. With Carlisle being a human doctor, it seemed possible that he would have the capability to create such a thing.

"That is something I've been looking into for years but I'm afraid I haven't made much progress," Carlisle frowned. "Such a discovery could be radical in the medical community, as well as for vampires. The answer is actually much simpler than that. We drink animal blood."

"But that doesn't make sense," I countered. I'd heard a lot of interesting things over the past decades – usually in the privacy of minds that didn't intend to be heard – but vampires surviving on non-human blood? "Animal blood is just as red as human blood. Even if the colour theory made sense, animals aren't edible to us… they smell absolutely awful."

"We don't understand why our eyes are the colour they are," Carlisle admitted. His thoughts glossed over a few basement experiments he'd initiated, all without conclusive results. "We speculate that it has something to do with the way animal blood reacts differently with our venom than human blood, though I've not been able to confirm such a theory. Drinking animal blood is a sacrifice but it's most certainly possible. I've never consumed a drop of human blood in my existence. I'll never know the lure it holds, but my family has assured me that drinking animal blood is akin to a human surviving on tofu."

"It doesn't quench your thirst to quite the same degree," Esme agreed, the image of a young blonde girl floating through her mind with an undercurrent of sadness. "I've made mistakes, killed when temptation became overwhelming. Despite the preferable taste, it's something I regret deeply. Though it may taste better, human blood is laden with a profound sense of regret. Animal blood, while less appetizing, is much easier for the conscience to swallow."

I nodded, understanding exactly what Esme was saying. It was like she was putting into words how I felt about hunting humans, since my altercation with Bree and her would-be attacker.

"I don't like killing innocent humans. Criminals seemed like least cruel of the available options. How could I not have realized? For 87 years I've been feeding off of people who didn't have to die. I've killed thousands of people. All this time I've spent destroying lives and there was another way?" I was angry at myself more than them, but I couldn't help my irritated tone.

"You did what you had to do, sweetheart," Esme soothed. I found myself liking the term of endearment, much to my chagrin. It reminded me of my mother. "No one is going to begrudge you your survival. If you so choose, you can change now. The future, not the past, is what is most important."

Carlisle nodded in support of his wife. "Though I don't relish promoting human bloodshed, your actions are more parts admirable than not. It takes a great amount of restraint to hunt as you did. Your dedication to not killing human innocents is admirable. I have no doubt you saved more lives than you took. There's still time to change, of course."

"I was always ridiculed for caring about humans. 'You're a vampire for god's sake. Do humans care about the feelings of cheerios? Of course not. Grow the fuck up and be a vampire, like you're supposed to be.'" I bitterly repeated one of James more cutting taunts. Not killing innocents was something I had been proud of. To James, it was a joke. Venom pricked my eyes though tears were a fruitless endeavour.

"I understand that you've been with them a long time, and I mean no disrespect when I say that James and Victoria are the very worst of our kind," Esme said flatly. "It's been very difficult for Alice, watching you have to live with their cruelty for so long. Hearing it second hand isn't much better. You don't have to live with that any longer. We will protect you from them, if necessary. There are enough of us to defend you, and Bella. If you need our help, it's yours, without conditions."

It was the first time I'd heard her voice sound anything but soothing and melodic. There was a feral undercurrent to her voice that assured me she'd do anything to protect her family and those she cared about from pain.

I shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what I want right now. I need some time to decide. I appreciate your concern, but James and Victoria aren't so terrible. They let me hunt how I want to, even if they don't agree with it."

"No one should have to 'let' you do anything, honey," Esme countered. "You should do what you want to do. Don't worry so much about making everyone else happy."

"For all of my existence I've been trying to do the right thing," I attempted to clarify. "I thought I was doing a decent job, but now there's another option that I never even dreamed of. I don't want to hunt humans anymore. James and Victoria would accept if I made that choice. All I want is to make the right choice for everyone. My parents taught me to be moral."

"I'm sure they're very proud of you," Carlisle said. "You've done a lovely job of preserving the values they taught you despite some challenging obstacles. If you were my son, I'd be proud. You've gone against the grain of your nature because you knew it was the right thing to do."

Esme reached a hand out to mine. I sat stoically, letting her hold it, all the while thinking of how much she reminded me of my mother. She was the antithesis of James and Victoria.

For a moment I could have sworn I saw the exact red of my mother's hair flash through Carlisle's thoughts as well, then she turned to reveal Esme's smiling face. Ironic, I thought, that I would imagine my mother and Esme to be the same person, when I had just been noting how much like my mother she was. Perhaps it wasn't ironic at all and I was reflecting my mother onto Esme to make myself feel better.

"How can you say that I've done something good? I've killed a thousand times more people than the two of you combined."

Esme squeezed the hand she was holding. "I was born into this life, Edward; I didn't have to make a difficult choice. It was already waiting for me. Carlisle's propensity for compassion drove him to find a way to live that I doubt any of us would have devised on our own, without some divine guidance. It's not an easy life. Animals are not a natural food source for us. Had you been born into our family, I have every faith you would have made the same choice the rest of us have."

"Do all of you have such clean track records? Why would you want me when I'm so obviously tainted?" I asked ruefully.

Esme shook her head somberly, clearly dismayed by my attitude. "That's a horrible word. Tainted makes it sound as if you've done something wrong. You haven't. You've done nothing a thousand vampires before you haven't. We choose to live this way because we want to. We don't judge others for making different choices."

"Jasper's history puts yours to shame," Carlisle added, a hint of amusement brewing. "I'm sure you've noticed his scars. He was the second in command of one of the southern vampire armies for almost as long as you've been alive. I'm sure you've heard some of the histories. The Southern covens were brutal. He didn't operate with any of the discretion you've shown. Regardless, he's family now. He's made the decision to change and he has been living our lifestyle quite successfully for the last fifty years."

"Is that how you got your scar, too?" I asked, eyeing the jagged pink mark curiously. It was very rare to see a vampire with such a prominent mark. Our skin usually healed so most cuts were next to invisible. Human eyes would be able to detect this one, I was sure.

He smiled tightly. "I think that's a story best left for another time."

Recognizing her husband's discomfort, Esme was quick to return the subject to Jasper. "Jasper is going to love meeting you," she declared. "For so long, he's been the only one with any history outside of our family. We were all born into this lifestyle with the exception of Alice. However she had her visions to guide her. I think you and Jasper will find you have much in common."

"Me, too," I agreed, eyeing Carlisle out of my peripherals. I was glad to see his tensed shoulders and grim expression had slackened. I regretted bringing up what was apparently a painful topic for him.

I was looking forward to meeting Jasper. I might not have many physical scars from my time with James and Victoria, but I had enough mental and emotional ones to last me for the rest of my existence. I thought he might understand my predicament in a way none of the other Cullens could. They gave saintly a new meaning. Jasper might understand how out of place I felt in this household.

The steady thrum of Bella's heartbeat, pumping just feet away, reminded me that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. For her I was willing to try. Lost to her, I leaned to kiss her forehead.

Esme grinned widely. "The two of you are just precious. Watching the way you interact with her is another testament to your character. I never want to hear you refer to yourself as tainted again, do you understand?"

I shrugged sheepishly, feeling juvenile for having said it in the first place. I didn't plan to waste any more time feeling sorry for myself when, as Esme and Carlisle had pointed out, I could be making changes for the future instead. From here on out, I was being given the opportunity to be a better version of myself.

The three of us sat in silence, me watching Bella and the Cullens watching me.

"I think I want to try hunting your way," I said finally.